


Commemoration

by thedevilchicken



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alien Invasion, Androids, Future, M/M, Painting, Robot/Human Relationships, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 17:30:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19155709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken





	Commemoration

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yujacheong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yujacheong/gifts).



CM-192's skin, underneath his clothes, is like a patchwork quilt. 

When Théo asked about it, the first time he undressed to change into the uniform the military wanted him to wear for the painting, he told him all the older ones - like him - are like that; reskinning them completely would be seen as an unnecessary waste of materials, so they just replace the damaged parts. The composition of synthskin is evolving all the time and it reacts differently to the pigments added to it, so they start to look a lot like they're composed of lots of skin-tone puzzle pieces heat-sealed together at the seams. 

The only part they do as one complete unit is the head, 192 said, because that looks good for the news broadcasts. They're not human, no, but they're built to look like it, at least where it matters for TV. The theory is that seeing them fight keeps human morale up in a way that skinless drones fighting aliens wouldn't. It maintains a healthy distance from the war for the ones not actually living in a warzone, but also maintains investment. Théo's still not completely sure if he agrees or disagrees with that.

They could have made the CMs look like anything, but they made them look like people. Their features are assigned at random from a central asset bank that hasn't had an update in the past twenty years, but they're all the same height - six feet two inches - with the same muscular build that's really a kind of armour and not actually muscle at all. CM-192 has generally pale skin and blue eyes and sandy brown hair and he doesn't look a day over twenty-five years old. He looks like a cross between a personal trainer and a barista Théo used to flirt with every morning when he was still twenty-five himself. He's attractive, which is probably why they chose him for Théo to paint.

Still, the fact is, 192 is his production number and not a name. He's not twenty-five; he's closer to seventy. At forty-two years old, Théo looks older than 192 does, but he's nearly thirty whole years younger and that's the android paradox he's been having to get used to since the painting started. Androids don't get much use outside the war these days and so he's never had a reason to, till now.

"I'm almost done," Théo says, with his paintbrush in his hand, hovering in the air, and 192 smiles tightly because they both know what that means. 

Androids were already in production when the Etani landed and the war began, years before Théo was born. They were meant for industrial purposes originally, then for other labour, then for sport and administration and for use around the house, but when the war began, production of the Combat Models started. Four months ago, the Etani cut their losses and withdrew from Earth. Three weeks ago, the powers that be declared the war over. Now the CMs, like him, have no purpose anymore. 

The picture Théo's been painting was commissioned for the thirtieth anniversary of the Battle of Paris, where CM-192 and the newer models under his command saved thousands. They started this a year ago, while the war was still raging far away from Théo's studio in his leafy London suburb, and they've worked on it in fits and starts slotted in between 192's assignments elsewhere around the world. He always arrives in a government vehicle with two armed guards - also androids, like almost all the rank and file are - and he buzzes in and he comes upstairs, taking the lift because he can here even if androids aren't meant to anywhere else. Théo has learned a lot about what they are and aren't allowed to do over the past year and very little of it makes any kind of sense to him.

The first time, Théo met him at the studio door and 192 seemed surprised when he introduced himself, and asked him in, and asked if he could take his coat, just like he would have asked anyone else who came to sit for him. He seemed surprised when asked him questions, and when he asked if the pose he'd sat him in was comfortable, when he asked if the uniform the Air Force had sent him seemed like a good fit. When his commanding officer came to collect him two hours later, Théo understood his surprise; he didn't treat him like a soldier, he treated him more like a thing. Most people do, he supposes. To most people, androids are just another kind of tool to do a job.

The second time, a few weeks later, 192 had two new patches of synthskin underneath his clothes. 

"Do you want to touch?" 192 asked, and Théo blushed and politely declined. But the third time, he touched, just lightly, just to see if he could feel the seams. He couldn't, but that wasn't what hit him.

"I didn't expect you to feel so..." He trailed off with a wince, and 192 caught his wrist in one of his hands. 

"You didn't expect me to feel so _real_?" he asked. 

"I didn't expect you to feel so _human_ ," Théo replied. Then he pressed his palm against 192's chest, over where his heart should be. He had no heartbeat, of course, because he has no heart, but that doesn't mean he isn't real.

The fourth time, he had another new patch, low down at the small of his back; when Théo asked, 192 told him an Etani soldier had tried to rip out his spine with its claws before he'd put a bullet in its head. The fifth time, it was his thigh. The sixth, his shoulder. The seventh, he looked the same as before; when Théo said so, 192 smiled wanly and told him synthskin just hadn't changed in composition since the last time they'd redone his face. The thought turned his stomach, but Théo lifted one hand to 192's jaw in spite of that. He let his fingertips trace his cheekbone, then his jawline, then the orbit of one eye. He ran his thumb over his lips and 192 parted them just slightly as he did it. Théo's chest felt tight.

The painting was started as a commemoration, for the thirty year anniversary of the Battle of Paris, and Théo knows why he was the artist they chose: he was in Paris when the Etani attacked. His parents had moved there from Martinique when he was still three years old because Europe had seemed so much farther from the war, but not long after his twelfth birthday, the Etani came to France. By the time the CMs arrived, almost everyone he knew was gone and half the city was in ruins. They saved the other half and they saved Théo, too, and his aunt in London took him in. 

He still speaks English with an accent, but he's only been back to France once; they call what he painted there a masterpiece, but he can't bear to look at it. And the CM who saved his life probably wasn't 192, but he doesn't know for sure because although he knows he'd tell him, he's never quite known how to ask. All he knows is it was one of them and there will never be a time when he's not grateful. 

Théo puts down his brush. He should have finished days ago, but he's been dragging this last part out and they both know it. And, they both know why.

It's not a widely-known fact, but the CMs are based on an earlier model and in seventy years, they've barely changed at all. It was simpler to press another design into a different function than it would have been to start from scratch, so 192 has told him, so all they did was add to what they had already instead of designing something new. In another life, 192 would have been sold into the leisure industry - he'd have worked in a gym or taught PE or given swimming classes at the local leisure centre, he'd have performed sexual services in a licensed centre, or he'd have been sold for household use to anyone who had the money. Théo's met people who have private androids; they're the ones who commission portraits of their horses while the rest of the world burns down. 

The eighth time he visited, he asked 192 if he'd have preferred a life like that. He laughed darkly in response. 

"You're the only one who's ever asked me that," he said, and Théo knows why; he's an android, not a person. They gave him emotion and intelligence and the capacity to learn, they gave him consciousness and a body to inhabit, but not any kind of freedom. What he is is governmental property. If he weren't, he'd just belong to someone else. 

Théo puts down the paintbrush and he stands. 192 is wearing a dress uniform, Royal Air Force, like he's an officer and not just an expensive form of cannon fodder; he stands, too, and he starts to take it off. Outside this room, he's not permitted to wear it, though everyone on Earth is still alive because of him, and CMs like him. 

192 takes off his borrowed uniform, piece by piece by piece, and Théo watches. The first few times were a novelty; after that it signalled the end of another of their sessions and Théo at least tried to look away; this time, it's a lot like something else because he doesn't turn. He goes closer. When he raises his hands to the patchwork synthskin of 192's chest, he lets him do it like he has before. It's not because of what he might have been if there'd been no war - they all know some of the other things that androids do, because everything that one can do they all can. Théo likes to think he lets him because he wants to. They've been avoiding this for months. 

He can't feel the seams he knows are there between the sections of 192's repairs - Théo has scars that he can see and feel and he knows they're there on 192 just like on him, they're _everywhere_ , but they're so minute his fingertips can't sense them. He asked him once if any part of his skin was left from the original and he told him that he didn't know, he's been repaired so many times. Théo feels like that says something he doesn't want to be a part of. 

When he kisses him, he wonders if he's just another part of the problem. When 192 returns that kiss, when he pushes Théo's shirt up and helps him take it off, when he bares his chest and puts his hands on him, he thinks he'll let him make that decision. When they lie down together, that decision's made.

192 looks and feels human under Théo's hands, but he isn't. He sounds human as he groans with Théo's hand around his cock, but he isn't. When Théo pulls him down on top of him, he's heavier than he looks, but Théo likes that. He likes his mouth at his throat and his cock between his thighs and the way the breath he doesn't need to take hitches as he takes it. He told him once that sometimes CMs have sex, because it feels good even if that's just their programming, and it passes the time between assignments. From the look on his face between kisses, Théo doesn't doubt that it feels just as good for both of them.

"How long?" 192 asks, after, as he's putting on his clothes. 

"Maybe a week." 

He nods. "Thank you," he says, and Théo doesn't ask what for. He knows it's _for treating me like I matter_.

But Théo doesn't want his thanks. He wants him to say he has a plan, that he's getting out and he has somewhere to go. He knows that when they're done here, just a few last sittings he's managed to convince the military brass he needs, 192 will be decommissioned. In one week's time, he'll be put in storage like the rest of them, just in case they're needed in the future. The Etani might come back one day.

The painting was meant to commemorate Paris, when British CMs dropped into France and ended the Etani attack. Now the war's over, it feels like a commemoration of a different sort. 

At the door, they kiss goodbye. Théo takes his hand and as he turns to leave, he'd like to tug him back and keep him there; he lets him go instead and resents the fact that he has to.

CM-192 is a hero. And Théo feels like he's the only one who'll remember him.


End file.
